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So I figured I'd post up some progress pics of the Rav Bralor I'm building for my girlfriend. These are some of the first pictures, and admittedly I'm horrible about taking any amount of progress pics. I'm attempting to get this done for WizardWorld Philly in a little over a month. I'm going for my own artistic interpretation of the sum of the reference available. Before you get worried, I'm going to do it justice. I like Mandos, and strive to always do them right. You could say that I'm going for an idealized version of the Action figure the most (shape of some of the armor and cape and other little details)

So enough words from me, on to the giant pics!

First the armor- I racked my brain to figure out how to do it, decided it wasn't worth sculpting and casting my own, wasn't completely thrilled with what I saw out there and then had a flash of genius. Bought a plastic mannequin half torso of ebay that wasn't too "realistically sexy" in its sculpt and that would accommodate my girl's form. Drew the armor on the torso, sat down with an xacto and there you have it. Best part: $30 bucks shipped and just a little time with a marker, ruler, and xacto.
Cod is one of those cheapo sintra ones I mistakenly got off ebay awhile ago, but its the right size proportionately for her, so a little TLC to sculpt up so it looked more like a fett cod and it was good to go. The Knee and foot armor is .25" sintra cut out and heat bent into a curve. Some PVC tube pieces were blended onto the outside of the knees and will have fett style darts put inside them.
Flightsuit was a generic flight suit/ coverall she found for cheap at some point. Removed all the pockets and took it in since it was a little baggy. Pocket material will be used to make the arm pouch. Armor vest is made from fabric we found at Wally world for cheap. We decided we wanted to have a Fett style armor vest, since it would look best and fit with the typical mando armor set up. We looked for a fabric that was a similar grey but possibly a little different in material and shade (just like fett in ROTJ). This stuff works great. There is no existing ref for the pattern, but I decided to throw in the fett style shoulder stitch lines, just to add more detail.
Here's the armor as it stands taped up to a another mannequin she had. The girth belt is hand made, used cotton clothesline from walmart dyed brownish grey, I dyed some leather and made some ends to it that have buckles with leather straps. The Ammo belt is entirely hand made by me. I made patterns and dyed the leather and hand stitched the pouches together. They're all functional as well. The little back cylinders are just pvc pipe filled with resin, and capped with a snap dome and a resistor sticking out the other end. The large cylinders are R2 ankle cylinders with one tab cut off. I did this for to reasons- 1. I had a Ankle cylinder I had made from PVC pipe so why not mold it and cast a few and 2. It fits in the star wars universe design style. Detail pieces were used in multiple places all the time. So they look like they belong, and there's extra detail with the scribed lines and tabs on the end that isn't in the artwork.
And here's most of the parts laid out on the cape rectangle. It's a wool outside (just an interesting weave that was on the cheap remnants table at Joann's) with a wrinkly cotton lining (same source). You can also see I added some tabs on the cod piece- probably won't be seen but it just brings it more into the reality that Fett's armor existed in, right? Its all about adding in the layers of detail.
And this is a blank cylinder of polyurethane foam. I shaped two of them into a tapered cylinder and will be sculpting up the gauntlet details on top of them. I'm going to go for an overall Fett style gauntlet like the figure, but with some of the little details worked in from the comic reference images. Plan is to make a mold of the sculpts and cast them in resin (so who know's there may be some for sale in the future)

That's it for now, hope you enjoyed. I'll try to update this thread as I go along. Later

Very nice work so far! I did a Rav inspired set out of aluminum for a friend at DCon last year.

The only part of the armor I would say to think about is the cod armor. I had some complaints that a male type cod can be uncomfortable on a woman, so I made a pattern for a cod directly influenced by the smaller "bikini" style cod of Rav/Vhonte from the Tom Hodges art. If you want a copy let me know and I can email you the PDF pattern.

I saw that armor build and was impressed with it.
Luckily The cod I'm using was undersized for a guy to begin with. So it actually fits her ok. (In my opinion the regular cod is uncomfortable for guys too) I've never been as big a fan of the 'Bikini' skinny cod piece, just not for me. I think the fett's style cod just looks better with the armor.

Tonight I'm going to finish up the work on the knees and start marking up/ building up the gauntlet sculpts a bit.

worked a little on creating the cape neck ropes (again, going for an idealized version of the figure) this weekend while at Steel City Con, but since I was doing an armor panel and helping out didn't get much work done. Planning on gauntlet work this week. Will post pics as I get more done.

yeah sorry about that, I'm horrible about doing constant updates.
I have been doing small things with it. I made some progress on the gauntlet sculpts. I'd say they're a third of the way there. The right just needs to be sanded some more, more filler putty, sanded, and coated in primer. I need to finish building up the left gauntlet and then fill it and sand it.

Again, for those just joining us; I'm not going for any specific piece of reference on this character. I'm sticking closer to the action figure for the most part as it is a constant in its details, whereas the comic illustrations vary. And I like the idea of making things that look like they belong in the same family of form as the Fetts (thus the Boba style armor vest) So you could say I'm doing an idealized version of the action figure, but I am working in some details of the comic art. You may be ably to pick out some of the extra box or panels on the gaunt that are inspired by the comic art. On to the pics!

Ya, I did that when I first tried to make female chest armor. It is not easy to figure out the actual size, or cup size. And the ones that actully state the size are not so inexpensive. The manequins don't really work for a "real" female chest. The abs end up small as well. Which is why I sculpted my own, because the curves and shape from those don't really fit too well, and you have to account for the undersuit and vest, which adds layers, they do not fit the curves of the chest. But, it is a cheap way of getting female chest armor! I just feel they are too pointy, and no actual size, but a A or B cup, with no definition, it could work. But any way, I like the way female armor is coming along, and all props to those who do what they gotta do! I do like the leatherwork you got going on! And I really like the Rav/Vhonte look, what a fun set of armor to build!

If you notice the torso I got to use is not of the pointy, or super anatomically correct with undercuts variety. I did search to find a torso which would be smoothly curved, and chose the larger size to take into account my girlfriend's chest, the flightsuit and armor vest layers. I also made sure to get one that was pretty much a straight on normal stance, as opposed to one that was more 'posed', which wouldn't allow for nicely symmetrical armor panels. I also made sure to get one that was a sturdy injection molded plastic, not a thin vac form or ridiculous thick fiberglass one. The torso actually ended up being a pretty good match to her and the armor panels cut out couldn't have been sculpted better myself when I hold them up to her.
Yes, if you choose to go the way I did you're only going to really be able to find roughly two sizes. However, you never really find much variety in any other armors out there (stormtrooper, vader, fetts, etc) anyway. You will have to be mindful to pay attention to the pictures and not choose too *ahem* realistic of a female form. You want to find one that is smooth shapes and looks like it could be actual armor. Don't get too thin of one and I would advise avoiding the fiberglass ones (they're about 3/8ths of an inch thick!) It took me maybe a half hour of interneting to find what I did on Ebay, and it worked out awesomely.

Anyway, I'm sitting here in the Vegas airport at the end of a vacation trip, and I have been itching to get back to working on this build and my own mando designs. My flight has been delayed some more, so by the time I get back to Philly I don't think I'm going to be working on the stuff tonight, but Memorial day is gauntlet sculpt day. I'm gonna tear it up with some epoxy and bondo. Might even get a little work done on holster and pistol work. I've got til June 21st to get it done, so I gotta pull out the stops! I'm just itching to get back to it! Once I get cracking some more on this expect more pics from me (I know I'm a bad updater of threads, lol)

So over the weekend I drove back home to Cincinnati for Cadet's college graduation party, but Tk-2257 came with me and I brought her armor with me to work on. I got the red main paint coat down on the armor. Here's a little pic:

Tonight I primered and spread some more spot glaze putty on the gauntlet sculpt.

I'm working some more on doing another round of sanding on the gauntlet sculpt. I'm also putting some epoxy putty filling on the pistols. I had to take some old earcaps I had sitting around and fit them to the helmet. We had misplaced the earcaps that came with the helmet. So that's some more filling and sanding on the helmet before I can paint the grey on the helmet. I also have to fabricate the rangefinder stalks.

Little update. Got the basic colors painted on most of the armor. Got the black and the gray on the armor parts that get it. Been working some more on the gauntlet sculpt, and I'd say that they have to be sanded one more time, then primered, and they'll be ready for silicone. Started working on the pistols a little more too.